Suchergebnisse

Arts-based research methods have an important place in social work scholarship. Arts-based research methods, such as poetic inquiry, highlight lived experiences through creativity, emotion, and embodiment. This paper shares findings from a qualitative study that investigated social workers' experiences with compassion in their professional practice through poetic inquiry. Findings are disseminated in a found poem that was collaboratively co-created by the researcher and study participants. The found poem highlights how compassion is a central and guiding force within social work practice. Compassion and connection remain core dimensions of the social work discipline and social work education, scholarship, and practice may benefit from continued exploration of compassion and related constructs.

Abstract
Child welfare (CW) reforms have called for including family and youth voice. Yet, most initiatives have remained at individual levels, and research has rarely included youth, parent and professional voices simultaneously and equally. This study sought to integrate these perspectives and identify systems-level strategies that could reimagine CW. Using an arts-based method and thematic analysis, researchers investigated recommendations for policy and practice changes needed to transform CW to better support youth. Data were collected from individual and relational poems written by forty-one participants, including youth with foster care (FC) experience and CW professionals. Participants were located in a Midwestern state in the USA. Four themes were generated and several key findings were highlighted. First, results demonstrated relationship-building as central to supporting youth in FC. Secondly, participants described complex, fragmented and fluctuating views about the purpose of CW. Thirdly, strong emotions were commonly demonstrated by both youth and professionals. Fourthly, participants offered prescriptive actions needed to better support youth. Overall, this study indicates that CW should centre relationship-building, youth self-determination and practices that build resilience for youth and professionals. Findings also provide hope for transforming CW towards an accountable, family-centred, well-being system.

AbstractThe child welfare system is characterized by fixed power structures, coercion and hierarchies that privilege the perspectives of a select few. These oppressive aspects of the system quelch youth voice and others' voices, especially those with lived experience, frequently omitting them from case‐ and system‐level decisions. Acknowledging the empowering potential of creative and arts‐based research, this study used poetic inquiry with youth in or formerly in foster care, parent partners and professionals working in child welfare, inviting them to reimagine how the system could support youth in foster care towards thriving. Through seven poetry focus groups, 41 participants wrote individual and relational poems. Analyses focused on how symbols were used and their suggestions for revisioning child welfare. Seven themes identified the types of symbols used in poems: 1) Nature/Natural Phenomena, 2) Human Body/Senses, 3) Actions, 4) Physical Objects, 5) Paperwork, Cases, Bureaucracy, 6) Connectedness/Family and 7) Strong Emotions. Beyond demonstrating a novel arts‐based method, findings offer a new, creative space for understanding the foster care system. Symbols were powerful and cut across life experiences and identities. A key implication pointed to using symbolic language to aid the work of revisioning child welfare towards humanistic and embodied approaches, social justice and well‐being.